Month: March 2006

Free Days

Next week is Interim Week for the school where almost all of my tutoring students go, so they’ll be on trips and in enrichment classes (like cooking, sewing, home improvement, etc.) all week. Which means I will only have ONE student on my schedule all week.

Both of my children will be in playschool their normal days.

I plan on using my Monday and Thursday mornings to work on stuff around the house (mostly Spring Cleaning), and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are MINE. I’m very excited. 🙂

Monday I’m focusing on reclaiming the master bedroom, because it’s gotten really cluttered. Thursday’s focus might be the kitchen cabinets — rearranging for better efficiency. We’ll see if I actually accomplish these things — I’m very hopeful.

The selfish part of me just wanted to quilt all week, but since Jerry was MORE than patient about my utter devotion to the Green Albatross for the entire month of February, I thought that maybe I’d make an effort to amend the backlog of housework that built up. 🙂

I also think I’ll check the schedule at SuperSuppers and plan to go one of those mornings (either Monday or Thursday)… Maybe even Wednesday, since I can take Alice to the church nursery for free babysitting on that morning. 🙂 Gotta love church — and it’s at the same end of town as SuperSuppers, so that works out, too.

Sorry I’ve been so blogless lately — I had a frustrating week and didn’t want to just come here to rant. It was one of those weeks where I kept losing things. I hate those weeks.

Mortality

Last summer, I took the girls for walks in our neighborhood frequently, and one of their favorite places to go was to “Sam and Molly’s house.” Sam and Molly were little kittens. Sam, a fluffy black and white kitty, was the more friendly of the two. Molly, solid black, was more aloof.

Since the weather has warmed up, we’ve gone by Sam and Molly’s house a few times, but we’ve only seen Sam outside. Today, our neighbor came outside, so I asked if they still had Molly. No, she was hit by a car.

Helen asked (as usual) where Molly was. So I told her. This has been an interesting discussion for the past 30 minutes, as Helen works through it. She’s been alternately tearful and hopeful as she asks me, “Where did Molly go?” and “Is Molly coming back?” And then accusing: “Did Mommy run over Molly? Daddy? Nannie?” I explained that there are lots of drivers on the road, and that I didn’t know who it was. But it wasn’t me, or Daddy, or Nannie, or anyone that she knew. Then hopeful again: “Will a bandaid fix it?”

It’s difficult to explain death to a not-yet-four-year-old, but I didn’t want to gloss over it or lie to her. I want my child to be worldly and filled with hope at the same time. We have six pets — one of them will eventually get sick and leave us. And then I can explain that our animal(s) are playing with Molly now.

Several days of discussion will follow, I’m sure, as she remembers this and wants to talk about it or cry about it.

But now she wants to watch “Dumbo.”

Closets

We have decided that we have cheap drywall in our big master bedroom closet. The clothesracks have fallen more than once, and even after my dad helped us to over-engineer them so they WOULDN’T fall. At least it wasn’t the screws that failed this time. The whole section where it was attached to the drywall ripped out. And not even because the clothes were too heavy — I was reaching to get an empty duffle bag off the top shelf, and the pressure of my hand as I reached up made the whole thing collapse. Quite funny, really. “Um, Jerry? Jerry? Can you come help me, please? Jerry? JERRY?!”

And it’s not that we’re particular clotheshorses. We’re not. We have a goodly amount of clothes, sure, but I know lots of people who are MUCH worse than we are, and their closets don’t fall down. That said, I’m going to be relentless tomorrow about getting rid of stuff that I wore before I got pregnant with Helen — my body shape has changed so much from having kids that even if I starved myself for months, I don’t think I’d ever be able to get back into some of those skirts and dresses. And anyway, why would I want to? Some of them are over 10 years old — styles don’t hang around that long. Purple Heart is coming by our house on Tuesday morning, and I hope to have Quite The Pile of stuff to donate.

So. Jerry and I are now in the process of deciding what we want/need to do in that closet and then one of us will go to Home Depot with the large car (mine) and pick up all the supplies for it. Fun for everyone. And then he and I both will start trying to slowly upgrade our wardrobes with a select few items that we REALLY love instead of a bunch of clothes that fit badly and are out of style. Guilt is not a good reason to hold onto clothes that don’t look good anymore.